In Defense Of MTV News (Sorta)

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

So, MTV News is the latest news organization to “pivot” to video as an excuse to, well, lay people off. While I do believe that video is the future of online news, I am doubtful that it will be as successful in the near term as maybe people would hope.

There is a real need for good text journalism online and no amount of pivoting to video is going to change that. I might suggest doing video journalism in conjunction with text, but not as a replacement for it. Regardless, I think in the end all of this will be quaint 20 years from now when we’re using our iVizors to interact with AR and VR newscasts.

So, in that respects, MTV News — and others — are ahead of the curve. Though it’s amusing that Nick Denton about five or so years ago was babbling about video journalism…and then never delivered. That’s just weird. Don’t know what’s up with that.